thinking + motherhood = feminist

The Price of a Six Minute Shower

The joy that swept over me when I suddenly came across my lip-gloss told me a lot about just how depressing I have been finding our house lately. I had a WTF conversation with my partner afterwards where we wondered whether we had suddenly become outrageously lazy or something, because why does the house look so messy all the time? It feels like we are always cleaning so why nothing to show for it?

Ya know, I am partial to a bit of minimalism (‘eclectic modernism’ I would call my decorating taste). I find peace in clean lines and spaces. I enjoy the spontaneity that is possible when you have order to fall back on (or rise up from, or whatever). We’re Montessori cult followers after all. And right now? We are living in chaos. Everywhere you turn there is a bunch of random crap on the floor; my toothbrush has gone missing (around the time the lip-gloss went missing) and I have been using my partner’s toothbrush (is that making you feel ick?) until that too went missing, and now I am on to using my children’s toothbrushes (also ick). I could go on – my handbag, work bag, desk, bedroom side table – all in utter disarray. It is awful.

About the time when I started to feel completely overwhelmed I figured it all out – Cormac has become a toddler – we are not pigs, it is he who is responsible for descending us all into this chaos. There is random clutter everywhere because he pulls bits and pieces out from certain places and spreads them around in other places; and those things get put away by us constantly except that, eventually, after the hundredth time sorting them you kind of contribute to the chaos yourself by randomly stuffing them anywhere they will fit that will get them off the goddamn floor for a while. Sometimes in despair I get a broom and sweep everything on the floor into one giant precarious tower of chaos. My partner calls it the Blair Witch pile – when something is so violently haphazard as to appear quite sinister. And then there are the things (usually of the precious variety) that are completely missing and who knows where Cormac has put them.

You might suggest, if you wanted your head bitten off, that it was just a matter of keeping on top of it. But seriously? One day I will take a photograph of what becomes of my bathroom while I am taking a shower and I will call the piece: The Price of a Six Minute Shower. And while you’re cleaning up the toilet paper, spare toilet rolls, toiletries, drain pipe grill, straightening iron, lotions, cotton balls, towels and everything else that is spread across the bathroom floor you will be clocking up a brand new debt. And this one will be called The Price of Ten Minutes Spent Cleaning Up the Bathroom Floor After the Six Minute Shower, and it will involve Cormac moving on to your desk where he is now pulling down disks, ripping up phone bills, turning your computer on and off, licking your (empty) wine glass, chewing on your USB cable, losing your mobile phone, and on it goes. Sometimes you have to take a break from cleaning up the mess to put a wash on or unstack the dishwasher and then you’re really in trouble because now your debt will be the previous mess you didn’t spend time cleaning up plus the brand new mess that was created by Cormac while you were unstacking and stacking the dishwasher.

I figure from our experiences with Lauca when she was a toddler that we have at least another two years of this chaos to deal with from Cormac. But I am trying to be optimistic, too – it will end eventually. And as I see it I have several choices: a) child-proof the house the way we did with Lauca when we were a little bit more helicopter parenting in style, but then that depressed me also because I packed away all our nice adult things, and even our bed was off its base and on the floor (us being co-sleepers and all), and it felt like we were poor university students again without a real possession to our name;
b) relax, drink more wine, embrace chaos, buy new toothbrushes every week, have a nervous break-down; or
c) look upon this problem as a puzzle to solve… like so.

It’s no surprise that our house has undergone some changes since Finn started walking. Given my personal penchant for rearranging furniture and constantly tweaking our home to make it more livable, I really embrace the opportunity to create interesting and safe spaces for Finn to explore and enjoy…

Inspiring, no? I will drink to that mother tonight and start solving this problem tomorrow.

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We only have one child and he hasn’t mastered door knobs yet, which means we can put stuff behind closed doors and keep those doors closed. And the house is still a mess. But it’s a tidy-able mess, and our tooth brushes don’t go missing that often.

He’s going to figure out door knobs soon, though, I think. We’re talking about putting hook and eye latches on the doors, high up, but I don’t want to mess up our 100 year old wood work doing that. As we get money, we’re investing in shelves to keep things up and out of his reach.

Other than that, we’re just… stepping over a lot of clutter on the floor. I grew up in a fairly chaotic house so it’s not that big a deal for me, until someone else comes over and kind of gives our place the side eye and I’m all “no! toddler! this all happened IN THE PAST FIVE MINUTES” which is sometimes true and sometimes not.

As soon as I hunker down and start a blog (snerk! Maybe *after* the kid is grown!), I will have a post titled “My Name is Cassandra, and I live in a Filthy House.” I’d like to link to this one, since it’s the same concept and you’ve said it so much more eloquently than I can at the moment.

Rome started this this morning. At 10 months, he could only manage the toilet paper pulling, ripping, tearing, discarding and throwing a few items out of a few drawers. He didn’t make anything into the tub or toilet this morning, so I call that a success. It seems when we make time to cook and clean and launder that our day doesn’t end until 10:45 p.m., sure, there’s time for everything, if you aren’t into sleep, relaxation, or hobbies.

I enjoyed the one shot where you can see some stuff shoved into boxes and baskets and tucked away in the corner. Not exaclty MESS, but I gave a sigh of relief that yes, they are clearly actual human beings, and probably did a big tidy right before the photo shoot.

I feel compelled to add that I didn’t mean to disparage supernaturally tidy people. I just don’t understand how that kind of perfection is even possible for more than about 15 minutes without the ability to extend the day by several hours (that would then be full of housework).

I am so relieved. I thought it was just me.
I keep talking about the pipe-dream of having a cleaner come in every now and then but I know that would never work. You can’t clean bench tops under seven layers of detritus. Sigh.

Cormac sounds awfully familiar. That link just showed me that her little kid has nothing on mine for exploration and destruction. All very cute, but that book holder would have one maybe two minutes, before it required almost constant restacking, after which time I think, screw it I’ll just make them into a pile near the bookshelf until he directs his attention towards say the spare containers and jars draw in the kitchen, which I always close by doing a big shove first.

Maybe some people can attain that level of order, but for me that would seem to come at the cost of absolutley everything else.

We have at times had the pit room as well, because we have high 1940s style door knobs. Aaahh 1940’s door knobs.

Argh, I’d actually kind of forgotten this stage (since Lil started sort of cleaning up after herself oh 1 month ago). I am dreading the decent the second time over. Maybe I will just get rid of everything and lock the bathroom…

(I did find those child-lock thingies on the kitchen & bathroom cupboards were a godsend last time. They were so much more about my stress levels than safety and I’d use them again in a flash.)

One day, when the boy was smaller, he had a longer than usual nap during which I decided to replace the icky old plastic cup we were using to hold toothbrushes with the nice (but handle-less and therefore never used) ceramic cups we’d received as a gift. Two days later they were broken ceramic cups and we were back to icky plastic.

If you find some system that will keep the damn couch cushions on the damn couch I will pay good money. Until then, I will keep chanting “he’s not as messy as a drunken undergraduate party”. Because the housemates of old were definitely more annoying.

Oh that’s so true! I lived in group house in first year uni that was just feral. They often spilt old bong water on the carpet, left old food and cartons of milk out in summer, put cigarette ash on the furniture, piled up wet towels on the floor, etc… The smell was unbearable and was the reason that I moved in with my boyfriend at 19.

Five minutes before reading this post I asked the Hubby if we could buy a new house. Eryn was pretty upset that she was able to explore our tiny, two bedroom apartment in about 10 minutes — and naturally, became really frustrated when I kept saying “no” as she got into the plants, eating the rechargable batteries while charging, throwing books… Ok, I let her play with and utterly destroy daddy’s wallet.

But when you’re in a small apartment, the slightest mess makes the entire place look like a disaster area. And after this morning’s tantrums (I didn’t know 11 month babies threw them), it just makes the most sense to buy a big house and give her the space she’s needing. We don’t even need to furnish it.

I have found it useful to become so despondent over the clutter, stained carpets, lost stuff (hey, my lip gloss is gone too) and empty toilet rolls scattered throughout the house that I no longer care, save for an occasional dull ache over what once was (but looking at the state of the carpets, will never be again).

More recently, I have found it useful to have a partner give up work so he can take care of the house. Ace! (gloat) (But the carpets still crappy and lip gloss still missing).

And here’s what I’ve learned (and what any sociological study can tell me): Al runs about all day – literally- doing the domestic work and it’s still not finished. It is not possible to have a clean house, two children and anything more than one f-t job per household unless there is a massive rift in the time-space continuum.

For me, the mess is emotionally horrible and aesthetically ugly but questioning our own standards, efficiency or drive is irrelevant because this is a question of physics.

i love this post. i think at least part of the solution lies in not cleaning up for company. then we will know that everyone is in the same boat, rather than feeling that there are (surely mythical) houses with kids in them that stay tidy.

Yes I try that sometimes too and he is pretty good in the shower all things considered – like the fact that our shower head is a special water-saving eco-friendly shower head that produces enough water to keep half of one person warm at any moment and no more. Hahah.

I love posts like this, because they let me feel smug. I know where my toothbrush is. The house is occasionally tidy. The boys have taken keeping their bedroom spotless as a personal mission. So I can feel completely morally superior while I ignore the screaming matches over getting dressed in the morning, the timeouts required to get miss two and half year old to stay in bed, the constant battles with the DS and the computer screen for my 7 year old’s attention and the general hell on earth that is my house any time my children are all home.

Actually, in all seriousness, I have to admit to being very pleased that we have left behind the “Pulling all the books of the bookshelf” stage. Not that I’ve put them all back where they belong yet. I think I’m secretly afraid that I’m going to leave behind all the stages and have no-one left to blame the chaos on.

I stopped feeling so despondent about the Montessori/designer child friendly rooms/houses when I realised none of them seem to have gifts – everything is purpose purchased. There’s no horrifically tacky photoframes with bottles marring the dresser because Aunt Jo got you it so it can’t be thrown away, or generic pink whatsits all over the place because god knows little girls don’t get enough pink (a hidden cost of hand-me-downs is that my daughter is dressed in the most socially approved manner for little girls). If there are gifts they’re gorgeous and totally suitable.

So I stopped feeling despondent and embraced the tacky gifts (although the photo frame is disappearing).

So with you on the gifts, geekanachronism. Heavily marketed commercial characters on cars, books, CDS… I drew the line at several hours worth of inanity and gender conformity on DVD and the tiny Australian Army tshirt and shorts set though. (Did you know there are groups on facebook where you can sell kids’ stuff without a listing price? Found a use for that site after all!)

I tell myself our house will be tidy once the Tiny Tyrant is post-toddler-preschool stage. In reality I’m aware it just means the detritus Fairy and I leave around will migrate into a miasma rather than the current piles on surfaces out of reach of tiny hands.

[…] who don’t remember to secure the lids on their craft containers, goddamn craft meets Cormac levels of chaos. When I came upon this I couldn’t help but notice for a moment just how beautiful the mess […]

I’ve got three. (5,5,8) Ain’t noticed the shower-thing so much, but the price of drinking a cup of coffee and chatting with my wife in peace after a weekend-breakfast, letting the children play by themselves in the downstairs living-room, is ~1000 *things* all over the floor there.

I wish that was an exageration.

When tired, I use a broom to push the majority of things out to the walls, leaving a trail of reasonably clear floor in the middle that makes it possible to walk trough the room without crushing too many toys.